--- title: How owls work: silent wings, turning heads, pellets and owl myths — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «How owls work: silent wings, turning heads, pellets and owl myths», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An owl is a hunting machine built for the night. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / How owls work: silent wings, turning h… # How owls work: silent wings, turning heads, pellets and owl myths Lesson 302 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/0/) — An owl is a hunting machine built for the night. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/1/) — Its wing feathers have comb-like front edges and soft fringes, so it glides past you in a barn without a whisper, and the mouse below hears nothing either. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/2/) — Its huge eyes are fixed tubes that cannot roll, so the owl turns its whole head instead, about three quarters of a circle, thanks to 14 neck bones and clever blood vessels that keep the brain fed. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/3/) — Its ears are often set at different heights, so it can tell where a squeak comes from both left and right and up and down, and a great grey owl can dive through deep snow onto a vole it has only heard. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/4/) — Think of an owl pellet on a classroom table: a ball of fur and tiny bones the owl coughed up, not poo. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/5/) — Pull it apart with tweezers and you can count the skulls of the mice and voles it ate. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/6/) — Stories call owls wise, unlucky or ill when they fly by day, but the real owl is simply a superb hunter. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/7/) — Owl flight feathers have a comb-like front edge, a soft fringe at the back and a velvety surface, which break the air into tiny swirls and make almost no sound; engineers have copied them for quieter fans and wind turbines. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/8/) — In many owls the two ears sit at different heights, so a sound reaches each ear at a slightly different time and loudness and the owl can tell up from down as well as left from right. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/9/) — A great grey owl can plunge through deep snow to grab a vole it has only heard. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/10/) — An owl can turn its head about 270 degrees, three quarters of a circle, but not all the way round; owls have 14 neck bones, twice as many as we have. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/11/) — Owl eyes are tube-shaped and fixed, so they cannot roll, and they are so big they fill much of the skull; owls see in light far too dim for us, but not in total darkness. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/12/) — Owls have extra blood vessels and little pools of blood that keep the brain fed when the neck is twisted, and the main arteries run through wide holes in the neck bones so they are not pinched. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/13/) — An owl pellet is a ball of fur and bones the owl coughs up, not poo, because owls swallow small prey whole and cannot digest bone and fur; scientists count the skulls inside to learn which small mammals live nearby. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/15/) — Owls are skilled hunters but not especially good at puzzles; crows and parrots do much better. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/16/) — The wise-owl idea comes partly from ancient Athens, where the little owl was the bird of Athena, goddess of wisdom, and appeared on silver coins. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/17/) — In many places owls were feared as signs of death, and in others they were lucky; really they call to keep their patch and find partners, and farmers put up owl boxes because owls eat lots of rats and mice. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/18/) — Many owls hunt at dawn and dusk, and the little owl and short-eared owl often hunt by day; owls are not blinded by daylight, because their pupils shrink like ours. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/19/) — Because its eyes cannot roll, an owl bobs and sways its head to look at a thing from slightly different places, which helps it judge how far away the thing is. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/302-how-owls-work-silent-wings-turning-heads-pellets-and-owl-myths/20/) — Most owls get nearly all their water from their prey, because the bodies of mice and voles are mostly water, though they do sometimes drink and bathe in hot weather. - ← previous: [Owls of the world: barn owls, eagle owls, elf owls and burrowing owls](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/301-owls-of-the-world-barn-owls-eagle-owls-elf-owls-and-burrowing-owls/) - next →: [Parrots of the world: macaws, cockatoos, African greys, lorikeets and the cheeky kea](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/303-parrots-of-the-world-macaws-cockatoos-african-greys-lorikeets-and-the-cheeky-kea/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)